Dedicated Reader
by you'vegotthis
Summary: "What is it you don't want me to see in that book Castle?" She spat. "Just bad luck to see the author before the publication, Detective." One shot.


**Disclaimer**: check.

Alexis tossed her the book from across the room.

"Quick Kate!"

"Alexis, you are supposed to obey your parental unit," he huffed pulling on her arm a moment after she had thrown it. He swung her around by the arm so that she tripped over his feet and fell on her side on the floor, laughing.

Rick turned his attention to Kate.

"Detective," he stalked her from the other side of the couch, "you don't want to ruin the story." She angled herself to pretend like she was reading pages.

"Nikki aimed the gun at her attackers, leaning into the wall as they returned fire," she read aloud dramatically, warily watching him as she circled backwards around the living room, keeping furniture between her and a desperate Castle.

"Kate! Don't ruin the story for yourself. You know how much you like to curl up and think of me while reading Nikki." He lunged for her across the back of the couch but she deftly turned out of his reach.

Alexis pulled herself up off the floor and onto one of the bar stools to watch the show.

"Nikki needed to think, she needed a safe place for her and Rook to get out of the line of fire," she continued reading from the book in a mocking, breathy-dramatic voice. "Castle, really, why don't you just let me read it? I'm going to eventually anyway." She moved to put the long end of the coffee table between them.

He stopped stalking her. "Okay, Kate." His face broke out in a smile as he moved toward Alexis.

Once Kate had her guard down, he moved quickly to cover the distance to grab Kate. She squealed and moved the book away as he wrapped his arms around her from behind.

"Castle!"

She held the book out from her chest so he couldn't reach it even as he twisted to pull her to the ground.

"Castle!"

Now she was curling up with the book beneath her, he was draped over her reaching for it.

"Alexis! Help me!"

He managed to manhandle her on her back as she slid the book out of both their grasps.

When Alexis came up with the book, he grinned down at Kate. He had her trapped, pinned to the floor with a hand around each of her wrists, using his weight to his advantage.

"What is it you don't want me to see in that book Castle?" She spat.

"Just bad luck to see the author before the publication, Detective." He checked over his shoulder for his daughter before quickly capturing her lips with his own. God, she was hot.

Before he had finished the act, she had flipped him and was standing over him, three-inch boot pressed to his chest. He wrapped his hand around her ankle, up the cuff of her jeans stroking the flesh he could reach.

_Hot_, he mouthed silently, looking up at her.

"Uh Kate," Alexis could see her looking down, but couldn't see her father's face, "maybe it's the dedication he's hiding."

_Damn_, he thought, even as Kate moved to reach Alexis, peering over her shoulder to see the dedication of Frozen Heat.

_For Kate, remember._

"Rick," she covered her mouth with her hand. He was beside her now, re-reading what he'd submitted to his publisher shortly after the sniper case, when he began to realize that their word might be all they would ever have, that she was never going to be free from her demons enough to invite him in. Frozen Heat had been written and re-written a hundred times. It was the hardest novel he had ever finished, waiting for her to live, waiting for her to heal, waiting for her to let go. Poor Nikki never knew such a schizophrenic personality. His first real revelation that, for all his careful author's characterization, his Nikki might be far more complicated than he had ever dreamed.

She turned to look at him. Alexis mirroring her questioning eyes.

"Alexis, we need to tell you something." Rick held Kate's elbow as she stood between the author and his daughter. "Kate and I love each other, we are . . . we are figuring things out. So that dedication means something to both of us." He looked at Kate, something unreadable in her eyes, then dared to use his hand to cover her mouth and quickly spewed out one last sentence:

"And now that she knows that I wrote it, she really, really wants to kiss me, so before she can't control herself, I need to know how you feel about it Alexis?"

Alexis shook the confused look off her face and looked at her father carefully. She'd asked him once if Kate made him happy, clearly she had. Although she wasn't sure she could trust Kate with her father's heart, she couldn't hurt him by denying him either. She was keenly aware of her father's caution around her boyfriends, it certainly couldn't hurt to loosen the tether now to allow him to do the same for her in the near future.

Her father and Kate were waiting for her answer.

She smiled widely at them and looked directly at Kate. "Does he make you happy?"

Kate nodded, Rick's hand still over her mouth.

"Just don't break each other's hearts, okay?"

Rick's face broke in a wide smile he let go of Kate and he leaned forward to plant a kiss on Alexis's forehead.

"Love you, pumpkin."

"Love you too, dad."

At the sight of Rick and Kate staring at each other, Alexis felt awkward, "I'm… uh, going upstairs."

As they watched her escape, Kate turned to Castle.

"I really, really wants to kiss you, huh? That's how you introduce us to your daughter?"

"You're telling me that you don't want to?"

"You are going to be impossible about this aren't you?"

"Always."

"Oh brother," she moved into his arms, and he smiled joyously at their new found physical expression, rubbing her back.

"It's a beautiful dedication Castle, thank you."

"I meant it Kate."

"I mean it too Castle," and with that she kissed her author, her lover, her friend. A kiss with a promise they both intended to keep.

A/N: This? I don't know what this is.


End file.
